John Carter Battles White Apes With Willem Dafoe. Sold.

Disney’s John Carter opens March 9th, but you’d barely know that from how little they’ve promoted it or explained what the hell the movie is about. Perhaps that’s why the studio is reportedly “scrambling to save its $250 million gamble” after tracking suggested the film “could be the biggest writeoff of all time.” On the other hand, some of the critics who’ve seen the film loved it, probably because they went in with low expectations based on the poorly-managed promotion. The previous clips as well as the ones below don’t give a very good idea of the scope of the visuals in this film, which are the main selling point for an Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation handled by Disney and director Andrew Stanton.

The first video below starts with John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) and Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) fighting white apes in an arena while green, four-armed, horned martians cheer them on. (I’ve had dreams like that, but the martians were also throwing hot dogs at me for some reason. . . .) The video ends with a “sizzle reel”, which is what we’re calling clip compilations now, apparently. The second video is a featurette on Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Mars played by Lynn Collins. On the upside, she seems to have some of the bravery and intelligence of the character of the book. On the downside, this movie — save for the expensive CG aliens — still looks like a low-budget sword and sandals movie which should have starred The Rock.